


Leverage Comment-Fics

by LMX



Series: Comment Fic [4]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Comment Fic, Gen, One Shot, Short, Spoilers, spoilers identifed in chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-02
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-04 02:56:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 5,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/705726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LMX/pseuds/LMX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Gen one-shots</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hit List

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Commentfic for moonchildfic who prompted Leverage, Team, They know Eliot thinks they don't take the hit lists he's on seriously. He couldn't be more wrong
> 
> Additional fills by badgerling and daria234 on the [original commentfic post](comment-fic.livejournal.com/180150.html?thread=38938550#t38938550), if you enjoy the concept.

"Nate..." Alec looked around himself unsubtly, spotting the others sat at the breakfast bar and clearing his throat. "Mexico City," he said, with a conspiratorial grin.

Nate let that sink in for a second, frowning. "I thought you said..."

"I'm good, man," Hardison interrupted him, "I'm *really* good."

"How many is that, now?" Nate asked, sotto-voice, glancing over Alec's shoulder at the others. Eliot was frowning at them, but hadn't moved to investigate.

"Down to the last few." Hardison grinned wider. "Sophie's gonna wrap the guy in Cuba next time she's free. I still can't track down Reynolds, or his team of spooks, but Parker did the switch on Takahashi while we were jet-setting last week, so we're just waiting for that to..."

"This something I should worry about?"

Alec visibly jumped at Eliot's voice, and he glared at Nate as their mastermind sat back in his chair, the picture of nonchalance.

"Damnit, man. Why you gotta be sneaking around like that?" Alec retorted, standing up and getting in Eliot's space, distracting him from his question by playing the fool.

Nate smiled easily. If everything went to plan, Eliot would never know what they were doing for him behind the scenes. And if they were lucky, one day Eliot might be able to retire in peace.


	2. Liberation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment fic for trulybloom.
> 
> On the basis that 2008 minus 8 years ≠ pre-1995, Eliot had to have gone back to his family after he *ahem* 'liberated Croatia'. He doesn't disappear from Aimee's life (circa that awesome monkey flashback) until 2000. Anyway, just thought I'd make sure y'all knew that. :D Also - all my knowledge of the world comes from Wiki. Occasionally Wiki fails. Apologies if that is the case. Oh, oh, and minor crossover warnings due to the verse I've used for Eliot's family (again).

It was '94, sitting on a plane back from the most hellish year of his young life that Eliot Spencer realised that his life would never be the same again. He was twenty years old, and already a well travelled strong-arm for more than one group of less than totally law-abiding individuals. Still, this was the first time he'd ever been abandoned to the mercies of his employer's enemies once the job was done.

He'd waited long enough after escaping that hole that he didn't look quite so battered as to be conspicuous, but three of his fingers were splinted and he couldn't do anything about the new scars or the still-healing wound in his lip that still pulled viciously and threatened to rip stitches every time he spoke. At least he just looked like he'd gotten in a fight, not like he'd lived through a year of imprisonment and torture.

Now he was headed home, back to his family, back to Aimee, and they would want to know where he'd been. They'd want to touch him and hold him, and hell, last time he'd seen Linds he'd been small enough that piggy-back rides and pile-ons were still the best way to get a grin. Eliot just wasn't sure he was going to be able to hold still that long. To accept touches from anyone without flinching away. It'd been a really bad year.

As it turned out, Aimee wasn't thinking about holding him much. Willie gave him apologetic eyes as he told him about the honeymoon in Texas and how Aimee had waited, she had.

Jamie had joined the army like he'd always wanted and Linds had hit that age where he didn't want to talk to *anyone*. His Pa had just looked at him and suggested he joined the French Foreign Legion if he was that cut up about this girl, and would he sit down, all that pacing was giving his poor Pa a headache.

His skin crawled every moment he was inside, and even the plains of his childhood out the window didn't seem to have enough air for him. He watched the news, seeing the eternal conflict between Serbia and Croatia and couldn't help but think nothing had changed but him.

He stayed home one night and headed over to the MPRI recruitment centre the next day. He was in Croatia less than a week later, training Croatian soldiers in Sepurine. The irony of the MPRI using a French Foreign Legion base to train out of was not lost on him.

In August '95, during four of the most influential days in the liberation of Croatian territories, Eliot had seen more families broken and destroyed that he could have ever conceived. In October, two months before the final agreement was signed and the war declared done, Eliot headed home. His part was done.


	3. The Great Pretender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Comment Fic for ziplocless Leverage, Team, "The Great Pretender"
> 
> Spoilers for 2.15

Nathan Ford once looked through a file of names and thought 'I can't work with these people'. One was insane, one had done a brief stint of jail time because of him and the third he had shot, at least once, and still not managed to catch. And then Nate had taken another drink from his glass and stared into the alcohol for a moment. Better this than a long slow drawn out… He pushed the glass to one side and took the job.

Later he'd found himself working with these unstable personalities, plus a fourth who had already shot him once, and it felt like walking a tightrope. Any minute they might turn on him. The exhilaration was fantastic, a rush like Nate hadn't felt since he was out in the field doing retrieval for IYS. Slowly he fooled himself into thinking he might have trained these thieves and killers. Housebroken them.

They parted friends, and Nate worried constantly how his pets were doing in the wild. Whether they could survive the way he has remade them, whether they were being good.

They met again and they told him they'd found the middle ground. Done bad things in good ways or for good purposes. Found ways to be harmless. He was proud of them, and shouldn't really have been surprised when they moved into his space like the pets they were.

It was nearly a year later when everything caught up to them and Nate shot and handcuffed to a boat. This wasn't quite how he'd seen this going, but the team were getting on a helicopter behind him and Sterling was smirking far too happily. He thought about telling him what a mistake he'd made. What he'd let loose on the world. He stayed quiet.

They waited until Nate was mostly healed before acting. Maybe that had been tactical, or maybe they just needed that much time. He had been moved back into police custody when he left the hospital, waiting for a transfer to a secure facility. The power went out first, and then all the police frequencies were blocked. Nate could hear the panic from his cell. There were six big explosions, leaving Nate's ears ringing, and suddenly Sophie was at his side, the rear wall blown away. There was a gun in Sophie's hand, and Parker was carrying a detonator and some big firearm. Five policemen and two FBI were shot down as Sophie and Parker dragged Nate towards the sunlight. Hardison was waiting for them in a new van, the city grid up on his computer. He pressed enter before climbing into the driver's seat. Nate could feel the vibrations of a much bigger explosion though the walls of the van. He didn't ask where Eliot was. He thought he might already know.

They arrived at his apartment, and Eliot was there waiting. He stepped aside as he let them in and Sterling was there, tied to a chair. His head was resting on his chest, his face and body bloodied, clothes ripped. Nate glanced at Eliot.

"Is he still alive?" he asked blandly.

Eliot nodded once, and Nate considered Sterling carefully.

"Good." he nodded.

Eliot grinned at the praise. Nate looked around, found Sophie, Hardison, Parker.

"You've all done very well." he smiled, no point in pretending now. He knew what he wanted. He turned his back on Sterling, touched Eliot's shoulder as he walked away. "You can kill him now."


	4. You Sleep, I'll Drive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Commentfic for sheryden who prompted: Leverage, any, you can sleep while I drive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for The Boost Job (s3e08), to which this is a coda

"Nate," Sophie's voice was pitched a little too sharply for Nate's end of day calm. "Eliot's concussed." she told him regally, the unspoken 'fix it' ringing loud and clear.

"Great," he replied blandly, nodding his thanks to the barman as he was handed his whiskey and calling for a second straight away before turning his back on the bar. "Parker and Hardison have wiped down and dumped the car that Josie stole and called in the shot up wreck over by the docks. All we need is…"

"Nate." Sophie interrupted him again.

"What?" Nate frowned as Sophie made a pointed head-jerk towards where Eliot was slumped on the other end of the bar, head in his arms. "Sophie," he lowered his voice. It was late and most of the patrons had cleared out already. "Eliot's been hurt before, there's a reason we leave him alone afterwards."

"He hasn't been hit by a car *and* thrown in the bay before," Sophie replied, scowling at him. "At least not as far as we know. Look, just… don't let him go home alone. And don't let him drive that ridiculously high-powered car tonight, at least until we can be sure he's alright."

Nate stared at her for a moment, "He's not alright," he pointed out. "He's concussed."

Hardison came to join them. "Nate, Eliot looks like shit, man. Did you hear what he did?"

"Yes." Nate answered shortly. "Is Parker with you?"

Alec gestured over his shoulder to where Parker was taking the seat next to Eliot, poking finger already extended. Josie was looking on curiously with a hint of hero-worship in her eyes.

"Parker." Nate snapped as the last possible minute. Parker swivelled on her seat and Eliot straightened slowly. "Parker, organise some food, will you? Corrie," he caught hold of her as she passed him with a tray. "Are you alright for us to lock up tonight?"

"Sure," she smiled at him. "Take the big table if you want food, there isn't anyone else coming in. I'll assume you don't need the keys?" She laughed at Nate's discomfort. Parker had 'locked up' for her once without using the keys, and Nate had expected her to be horrified at the lock-picker's antics, she had just found it highly amusing. Corrie looked ready to walk away when she hesitated. "Hey, Nate. Is your man at the bar alright?"

Nate's smile stiffened. "He's fine," he replied.

Corrie gave him a disbelieving look. "Well, don't let him drive home like that, alright?" she said, and then headed off into the side room.

"Hardison? How long would it take you to change the ownership of Eliot's car?"

-

Eliot had come and joined them at the table, but had visibly blanched when Parker had offered him food. Parker hadn't taken offence, just redistributed it around the table. Sophie had given him a scowl when he had picked up a beer, but he hadn't noticed. Then she'd turned her scowl on Nate, as if he had any control over whether the guy drank or not, because hell, there was hypocrisy and…

Nate kept things light, didn't drink any more whiskey (as much as he'd have liked to), kept the conversation moving and kept the group together as long as he could so that they could see that Eliot was fine and not about to keel straight over. Then he talked Eliot into letting him drive the car home as ransom for turning the paperwork back over.

Eliot was asleep in the car by the time Nate pulled up outside his apartment, and Nate knew how this would play out. He'd wake Eliot and try to persuade the hitter to let him come up and keep a look out for him, but Eliot would refuse (he had for much worse injuries, though perhaps none so dramatic) and walk away under his own power. Survive the night and reappear tomorrow looking like nothing could touch him.

Nate let the car idle, listening the sound of the well cared for engine complaining about the earlier chemical mistreatment. There was something soothing about the noise, and while Eliot had been trying to get Nate to hear the engine damage in its grumblings, it had still put him to sleep pretty quickly.

Making a decision, Nate pulled away from Eliot's apartment and headed out into the city. Eliot was sleeping right now, and he was happy just to drive.


	5. Last Man Standing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Commentfic for smilesoftnsweet who prompted: Old Ghosts

Nate had thought himself unbeatable, standing in front of the man he had hated most in all the world, triumphant. He had walked away from them all because he was a realist at heart and he knew it couldn't last forever.

He used the time to make peace with his son's ghost and his father's alcoholism. Some dark times followed, but he left the bottle behind and tried to convince himself he felt better for it.

At first everything had felt stilted between them all, and Sophie's boyfriend had weighed on him. Still, Parker's proud shining grin had been the cure to his every ill.

He had once been a formidable profiler, so maybe he had seen Sophie's breakdown coming before the others. Maybe he could convince himself that he knew her better than they did, knew *HER*, not her name or current identity. He knew the person she was - the bad actor, the consumate teacher, the affectionate mother hen. He had dreams where she was none of these things, where she chose those personality traits because she knew how to control a man like him. He didn't know why they weren't nightmares.

Without Sophie, Parker was lost. Hardison was unappreciated. Eliot was surly. They took Tara into their family like a distant relative overstaying her welcome, but couldn't help but be impressed by her.

She wasn't Sophie, though. She rarely offered encouragement or praise. She didn't join them for nights laughing about their most recent mark over dinner. Eliot hadn't cooked for them in months.

Parker fell first. Nate couldn't talk about it. Eliot disappeared. Hardison stopped eating. Tara was always there and Nate hated her for it.

When Eliot got back (bruised face, two healing gunshot wounds) Tara convinced them all that they needed a job to take their minds off...

Eliot put food in front of Hardison and bullied him until he ate it. Then he watched him to make sure he kept it down. Nate felt like less of a man for not doing that himself months ago. He stared down his bottle of scotch, but didn't throw it away. Took another shot.

They took a job.

Stealing was out, so they mainlined intimidation, bribery, con-art. Hardison and Eliot doubled for Tara's muscle in fourteen different cities, six different countries. (They'd been staying away from home since...)

In China, Eliot took a bullet and didn't get up. No one's fault, just a goon too handy with a gun. He stared Nate down as he bled out, and Nate couldn't find the words. Too much accusation in those eyes.

They buried him back in the states. His sister and nephew turned up to the service, and Nate didn't know what to say to them. Sophie came home the next day, and Nate screamed at her until she left again.

There were too many ghosts in the house. They changed cities, and Hardison became a wreck. He wouldn't leave his room, running his technical genius from his computers there. Tara still carried her parts of the cons with flair, though more reluctantly now.

Nate saw them out of the corner of his eye every day. Sam first, but then Parker and Eliot. Finally Sophie. Tara stoped asking him if he was alright. He was still very good at what he did, and Hardison was better, and so she still got her payoff at the end of the day. They were still worth her time.

The FBI picked up Hardison. He joined the others, haunting his every step. Tara disappeared for longer and longer at a time. Came back to do the occasional job. Nate had piles of uncompleted jobs on his desk, and unrecycled bottles and cans creeping across the floor.

When he uncovered a plot the scale of which he could not even begin to comprehend, he ventured out (he crossed the road whenever he saw one of them waiting for them) and walked into his local police department. Averting his eyes from Eliot stood menacingly against the wall behind the desk officer, and Sam spinning on one of the chairs, he tried to explain what he'd found.

The men in white coats were not gentle when they took him away.


	6. Introductions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Commentfic for moonchildfic who prompted: Leverage, Blind!Eliot, The first time he met the seeing eye dog the team got him.

"Eliot, I want you to know that I had nothing to do with this."

Eliot, already tense from the morning's walk into the offices, was not overly reassured by Nate's opening statement.

"ELIOT!!"

Or by the tone of Parker's voice as she shouted his name from the other end of the building.

"Nate, tell me what's going on." he growled.

The first time Eliot met the seeing-eye dog the team had found him, it was when the creature took him out at the knees. It floored him and sat on his chest licking his face, while he lay there wondering how he could still see stars when he couldn't see anything else.

"Hey, man. We found you a seeing-eye dog." Hardison told him from somewhere overhead, no hint of irony in his voice.

"Aww... Eliot he likes you. You wouldn't believe how cute he is." Sophie added helpfully.

"Great." Eliot replied. Now he was going to have to work out how to break it to Parker that puppies didn't turn into seeing-eye dogs just by living with a blind man.


	7. Reunions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Comment fic for ziplocless. Spoilers for season 2 finale

Reunions weren't supposed to be like this.

When they split, when they parted, it was "If you need me, call." and "It's just for a little while." and "Just give me long enough to put together a plan. We'll get him back." No time to get upset, no time to talk. This is what they did when the heat got high. What they'd been doing forever.

Only to come back to...

They'd all missed the main event; too much heat, all of it expecting them. Instead they all gathered afterwards and stared down at the cold stone in the ground.

Speechless, they stood and stared, not-quite-reunited.

Maggie approached, greeted them all tight-lipped, unsmiling. Something hard around her eyes made them look at her in a whole new light, as a warrior.

"Sterling's got to pay." she said, meeting every pair of eyes. "I have a plan."

Four thieves and their mastermind walked away from the headstone marked "Nate Ford".


	8. I'm The Doctor. The 11th Doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Comment fic for badfalcon who prompted: Leverage, Hardison, The 11th Doctor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, Parker and I should both like to point out, illegal downloading is bad. Tut tut Hardison. Your Nana would be frowning at you. Hypocrite? Who me?
> 
> Spoilers for Dr. Who Episode 1 Season 5

Hardison was hyper.

Hyper with exclamation marks, capitals and little sparkly glittery things. And a theme tune. (Damn, that theme tune, he was never going to get it out of his head).

He hadn't slept at all night, and then had spent all morning waiting, then with the finding and downloading (monitoring every minute of download to maximise download speed, disconnecting everyone else on his exchange to minimise competing traffic) and finally watching (three times) the newest episode of the newest season of the newest regeneration of the Doctor.

When he turned up at the offices that evening (still hyper) it was in a tweed jacket (very hard to find in this part of the states, god damn) and a pretied bow tie. He'd found a self-tie one, but had then realised that would require him knowing how to tie it.

He knew Sophie was looking at him strangely when he asked Parker if she'd ever thought about dying her hair red, but really all that lead to was him asking her if she could do a Scottish accent, and then clarifying Inverness because Sophie's flawless Glaswegian accent just wasn't right...

He was getting pretty close to crashing point when Eliot walked in through the door, and Hardison just *froze*.

"Dude!" he near-shrieked. "Your eyes are *exactly* the shade of blue..."

"Get the hell away from me." Eliot retorted, backing away to a safer distance.

"This world is protected!" Hardison shouted. Heedless of everything, he struggled with his tweed until he managed to produce a green-tipped sonic screwdriver (brand new off the shelves) from his pocket. He waved it threateningly at Eliot. "RUN!"

It wasn't quite how it had gone for the eleventh Doctor, but as Hardison did just that, he rationalised to himself, two of those big blue-eyed-spaceships were sure to have been more intimidating than one.


	9. Survival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Commentfic for reikoyazumi, who requested a Tap Out Job Reset
> 
> Spoilers (obviously) for the Tap Out Job

It's pure confusion that sets in with the lethargy in his limbs - he isn't hurt enough to be moving this slowly, to be taking this many hits. He bounces up off his knee as he half-falls and catches himself, back on his feet with enough speed to defend himself from a brutal sequence and get a couple of blows in himself - weak and sluggish.

The confusion is making it hard to remember where he is, why there's a roar of screams around him as he takes a hard fist that seems to fly through his face and out the other side; throwing him to the ground, bouncing him off the floor.

The truth is he's dying here, and even if he gets this guy down, he doesn't know if there's more coming. If he can't stay upright then he can't defend them, and he can hear them screaming. They need defending. They need him. They need him to stay up. He scrambles back to his feet, every muscle in his body screaming and his knees trembling. He's got to end this now, for them.

He takes a dozen more blows before he's in position, feeling his body failing around his determination, breathing sticky and wet, eyes stinging with blood. There's a visceral click as the enemy's neck snaps and the screams only intensity. He's being dragged down by the weight of his own muscles and the throbbing his his head, and all he can hope is that there's someone else out there to keep them safe until he can open his eyes and do it himself.


	10. A Little Bit of You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Parker has labelled caches all over various cities.

Parker has labelled caches all over various cities. Mostly money and things too hot to fence yet (they feel like nascent money, just waiting for their transformation). There is, however, a cache in Boston that doesn't have any money in it at all. It's a small storage container, like a lot of the others; easy to move to anywhere in the world at a moment's notice. Its contents are barely worth as much as she's (reluctantly) paying for the container hire.

There's a burned out circuit board in a tiny padded box. Alec doesn't know that she watched him coax the failing electronics to the end of their life while Nate free-wheeled on the provided information. He had put it in his pocket after carefully replacing it - talking to the damaged circuits all the way through - and it had been interesting to pick because the pins had caught on the material.

There was a pocket hankie, bright red, from Nate's brief stint as a magician. He'd enjoyed the job so much, with his flourishes and his bright eyed smarts as he wowed the crowd. She'd enjoyed the challenge of taking it from the middle of the hankie chain while Nate was practising the patter that went with the trick. It was tied in a neat knot around one of the uprights of the shelving system, and she touched it from time to time.

There's an earing - just one, the other lost at some party or other - that Sophie had put in her pocket upon realising she was one short. It was long and delicate and made a lot of noise when it moved, and Parker had felt like she was in the classroom all over again as she picked it - triumphant when it remained silent in her hand. She's had to hide her celebratory dance, but she thought Hardison might have seen her anyway, grin so big on his face.

There are seventy four wallets - every single one of them Eliot's. They all have false credentials in them, Hardison's handiwork, flawless except it isn't his name written there next to his face. She's never been able to lift one with Eliot's own identity in it. Maybe he never carries one. Maybe he's a ninja and he's got secret ninja ways of hiding it so that she's never found it. She hasn't worked it out yet.

There are other things too, many many things all with their own little stories and the memories attached to them. It would look like a junk yard to anyone else who walked in here. The contents are probably worth a couple of thousand dollars in total, most of that in identity documents out of Eliot's wallets (all the cash had been stored with its own kind, or had been demanded back).

The problem that Parker had was complex. When she stole all of these things she had expected them to keep that energy they had in the hands of the people she'd stolen them from. Money kept its power when removed from the owner, and paintings and ancient things were worth just as much after she'd taken them out of the gallery.

It made sense that these things would keep their intrinsic value too. She would love them, because she loved them when she watched Hardison coax life out of a dying machine, or Nate play with a string of hankies, or Sophie toy with an earing to draw the mark's gaze or Eliot pull another body-warm tired leather wallet out of his pocket.

She'd expected that she could take all these parts of people who she loved and if they went away again she could take these samples of them with her. Only... when she emptied them out of her pockets and onto the shelves they had been dull and useless and hardly even worth any money.

So she'd tried, again and again. Nothing was safe from her - pockets, bags, homes and offices. She filled her storage container and still it wasn't working. She couldn't recreate even a fraction of her love for them in these empty objects. Instead she thought about the people who used to own them, and that was no use at all.

She sat down in the sofa that had come to take up the middle of the space (Hardison's - taken from his house. And he'd enjoyed trying to work out how she'd done that for weeks). The problem was even though the sofa was the thing she was trying to love, all she could imagine when she sat in it was Hardison. And that made her miss him.

If she ever lost them...

Well the solution was obvious. She _couldn't_ lose them until she had found a way of taking the feeling she had with them away with her. Until then, she'd have to make them stay.


	11. Unique from any Other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very distinctive rescue

Eliot woke to the disorienting realisation that he was on his knees with his hands lifted high behind his back. The pressure on his shoulders was all that was keeping him from toppling and his shoulders were letting him know in no uncertain terms that they were not a fan of the situation.

He was blindfolded, which he was counting as a blessing given how his head was pounding, but he could tell he wasn't alone in the room. He struggled to his feet to get the pressure off his shoulders, feeling like the world under his feet was tipping aggressively. That was either a concussion or they'd managed to get him out to a boat. He couldn't remember where he'd been taken but he was pretty sure he hadn't been near the docks.

A foot came out of nowhere and took out the back of his knees, jarring him back down onto the hard floor. He managed to tip to his right at the last minute to save his dodgy left shoulder from another dislocation - feeling the hot-wet surge that suggested he'd still managed to tear something in there. He nearly bit through his cheek with the restrained yell, but his companion didn't add anything else to the exchange - not even a reminder to stay on his knees.

He forced his breathing slow and quiet, feeling the sharp hitch in his chest that was either a broken rib or some serious bruising - hard to tell with his weight all resting on his shoulders as it was. As he settled, he worked on pushing his other senses out into the room.

He wasn't sure how long he stayed like that - almost meditating to the ambient noise around him - before he heard it, but it was there. A tiny pitch change in the electronic hum. Barely anything really, but when it was followed by that cycle-change in intensity, half a dozen times or more... Hardison's hacking techniques were fairly distinctive, even from this end. And it was hardly the first time he'd been on this end. Eliot turned his head, wondering what Alec was taking control of out there. He assumed it was probably the surveillance system and subconsciously straightened, putting on his game face.

The new position was uncomfortable, but Eliot was sharp enough to hear the distinctive press-shuffle-press-shuffle of Parker moving tentatively through the metal venting above his head that he hadn't even realised was there. Some of the panels were flexing unhappily beneath her weight with a muted but distinctive wop-wop of rebounding metal, but it didn't seem to have drawn the attention of the guard.

Eliot carefully tucked his toes under his heels, but didn't make a move yet. Parker and Hardison might be in place, but that didn't mean it was time to act. 

What seemed like far too long later there were two voices, made odd by a long corridor - and footsteps too, four pairs of those. He focused carefully and made out American accents - something south-western, but very disciplined, precise speech patterns. Forces of some kind, and maybe... yes, two pairs of Army boots. That covered two of the pairs of feet. The others... huh, one more pair of Army boots... but a very distinctive gait, very much not Army. Nate was on his way.

The panel above him flexed gently as Parker shifted, and whatever electronics Hardison had seized control of started a stutter-whirr.

The last set of footsteps were gentle, low heel, slightly hesitant... Sophie had to be playing the shy secretary. Or maybe the bullied wife. The two sounded very similar - upsettingly indistinct.

His guard moved towards the door on some unseen signal, and Eliot prepared himself for getting back onto his feet. Hardison's stutter-whirr turned into a full on hum as the door was unbolted, and then there was the distinctive pop of a light blowing out. Panicked voices hid the sound of Parker dropping towards him - a slick zip of ropes through metal devices - and his arms were released slowly.

Sophie's hand - too familiar to be anything but - caught hold of his own and helped him to his feet before pulling him out the door. He was less than perfectly balanced, ground lurching beneath his feet, nausea rising with every step and still blindfolded, but they made it a fair distance before he heard Nate's voice behind him; "My wife! That monster has taken my wife and escaped!"

They were both pulled into a smaller room off the corridor, and Sophie's oh-so-distinctive hands tugged gently at the blindfold as Hardison propped him up against the wall. Eliot kept his eyes closed for a beat or two, letting the first little bit of light seep through his eyelids before he squinted into the light. He pushed Hardison away because it needed to be done, but didn't try to move away from the wall that was supporting him.

Hardison gave him a bemused eye-roll and settled a comm in his ear as Sophie started poking at his shoulder, muttering about the way he'd taken that fall. Nate was cooking up murder on the comms and Parker casually reappeared without any kind of warning, getting a waggling finger from Sophie at her first attempts to move in close and poke him. Hardison was already back on his computer, hammering away as he made sure they were all safe and had a safe route out of there.

This feeling wasn't like anything else he'd ever experienced in his life, but hell if it wasn't reassuring to have something so very distinctive to fall back on when he needed them.


End file.
